What do you think?
Rate this book
Monster
Something's out there...
Reed Shelton organized this survival weekend. Hired the best guide in the region. Meticulously trained, studied, and packed while encouraging his wife, Beck, to do the same. But little did they know that surviving the elements would become the least of their worries. During their first night of camping, an unearthly wail pierces the calm of the forest. Then someone—no, something—emerges from the dense woods and begins pursuing them. Everything that follows is a blur to Reed—except for the unforgettable image of a huge creature carrying his wife into the darkness. Dependant on the efforts of a small town and a band of friends, Reed knows they have little time to find Beck. Even more important, he soon realizes that they aren't the only ones doing the hunting. Something much faster, more relentless—and definitely not human—has begun to hunt them.
452 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 12, 2005
537 people are currently reading
10.8k people want to read
About the author
Frank E. Peretti
86books3,716followersFROM HIS WEBSITE:
With more than 12 million novels in print, Frank Peretti is nothing short of a publishing phenomenon and has been called “America’s hottest Christian novelist.�
Peretti is a natural storyteller who, as a youngster in Seattle, regularly gathered the neighborhood children for animated storytelling sessions. After graduating from high school, he began playing banjo with a local bluegrass group. He and his wife were married in 1972, and Peretti soon moved from touring with a pop band to launching a modest Christian music ministry. Peretti later spent time studying English, screen writing and film at UCLA and then assisted his father in pastoring a small Assembly of God church. In 1983, he gave up his pastoring position and began taking construction jobs to make ends meet. While working at a local ski factory, he began writing This Present Darkness, the book that would catapult him into the public eye. After numerous rejections from publishers and a slow start in sales, word-of-mouth enthusiasm finally lifted This Present Darkness onto a tidal wave of interest in spiritual warfare. The book appeared on Bookstore Journal’s bestseller list every month for more than eight years. Peretti’s two spiritual warfare novels, This Present Darkness (1998) and Piercing the Darkness (1989), captivated readers, together selling more than 3.5 million copies. The Oath was awarded the 1996 Gold Medallion Award for best fiction.
For kids, Peretti wrote The Cooper Kids Adventure Series (Crossways and Tommy Nelson), which remains a best-selling series for children with sales exceeding 1 million copies. In August 2000, Peretti released the hilarious children’s audiocassette series titled Wild and Wacky Totally True Bible Stories, reprising his role as Mr. Henry, the offbeat substitute Sunday School teacher found in two Visual Bible for Kids videos.
Peretti released his first-ever non-fiction book, The Wounded Spirit in 2000, which quickly became a best-seller. The book addresses the pain of “wounded spirits� and was written as a result of painful childhood experiences.
Frank Peretti and his wife, Barbara Jean, live in the Western U.S. In spite of sudden fame and notoriety, Frank still lives a simple, well-rounded life that includes carpentry, banjo making, sculpturing, bicycling and hiking. He is also an avid pilot.
With more than 12 million novels in print, Frank Peretti is nothing short of a publishing phenomenon and has been called “America’s hottest Christian novelist.�
Peretti is a natural storyteller who, as a youngster in Seattle, regularly gathered the neighborhood children for animated storytelling sessions. After graduating from high school, he began playing banjo with a local bluegrass group. He and his wife were married in 1972, and Peretti soon moved from touring with a pop band to launching a modest Christian music ministry. Peretti later spent time studying English, screen writing and film at UCLA and then assisted his father in pastoring a small Assembly of God church. In 1983, he gave up his pastoring position and began taking construction jobs to make ends meet. While working at a local ski factory, he began writing This Present Darkness, the book that would catapult him into the public eye. After numerous rejections from publishers and a slow start in sales, word-of-mouth enthusiasm finally lifted This Present Darkness onto a tidal wave of interest in spiritual warfare. The book appeared on Bookstore Journal’s bestseller list every month for more than eight years. Peretti’s two spiritual warfare novels, This Present Darkness (1998) and Piercing the Darkness (1989), captivated readers, together selling more than 3.5 million copies. The Oath was awarded the 1996 Gold Medallion Award for best fiction.
For kids, Peretti wrote The Cooper Kids Adventure Series (Crossways and Tommy Nelson), which remains a best-selling series for children with sales exceeding 1 million copies. In August 2000, Peretti released the hilarious children’s audiocassette series titled Wild and Wacky Totally True Bible Stories, reprising his role as Mr. Henry, the offbeat substitute Sunday School teacher found in two Visual Bible for Kids videos.
Peretti released his first-ever non-fiction book, The Wounded Spirit in 2000, which quickly became a best-seller. The book addresses the pain of “wounded spirits� and was written as a result of painful childhood experiences.
Frank Peretti and his wife, Barbara Jean, live in the Western U.S. In spite of sudden fame and notoriety, Frank still lives a simple, well-rounded life that includes carpentry, banjo making, sculpturing, bicycling and hiking. He is also an avid pilot.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,068 reviews
December 9, 2017
I remember reading this many moons ago and I still enjoy it
This is no Harry and the Hendersons story. Reed and Beck are out for camping. Of course, they ended up in Sasquatch land. Beck ends up taken by a Bigfoot and she lives with the Bigfoot, Bigfeet? family. Becks husband Reed is on a search for her with some peeps. Do they find her? And what's her life like with the Bigfoot gang? Read it and see 😄
Oh and I forgot to mention the mean jerks in the book! There are always those. Some crazy scientist dude.
Anyway, Happy Reading.
Mel ❤️
This is no Harry and the Hendersons story. Reed and Beck are out for camping. Of course, they ended up in Sasquatch land. Beck ends up taken by a Bigfoot and she lives with the Bigfoot, Bigfeet? family. Becks husband Reed is on a search for her with some peeps. Do they find her? And what's her life like with the Bigfoot gang? Read it and see 😄
Oh and I forgot to mention the mean jerks in the book! There are always those. Some crazy scientist dude.
Anyway, Happy Reading.
Mel ❤️
April 22, 2011
I picked this book up at the library without knowing anything about it other than the title and the plot as described on the jacket. They should really mention that it is christian fiction somewhere on the jacket. I got roughly half way through the book when it occurred to me that the Christianity was being poured on a little thick. I looked into who the author was and it turns out he is a writer of christian fiction. I wasted my time reading half of a book I never would have touched, because it didn't say anywhere that it was christian fiction. Not everyone is a christian. I think it should clearly state on the jacket that the book is pushing religious dogma no matter what the religion is. It would save a lot of people a lot of time.
December 18, 2024
Before Ted Dekker or Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, there was Frank Peretti, whose Christian-themed novels have sold incredibly well and even got made into movies. Monster is a newer Peretti work, but is nonetheless on par with his other novels. As usual, the story, writing, plot, etc., were all great, and it makes a very good point. I do have to issue one complaint: Those who immensely enjoyed the Darkness duology might feel slightly disappointed, but those two novels were a hard act to follow. Still, those who enjoy Christian literature will probably like Monster.
EDIT: I do want to say that, on the ebook version I read this time, the maps were kind of small and hard to see; rotating my iPad did not help. If you have the option, pick up the print version.
EDIT: I do want to say that, on the ebook version I read this time, the maps were kind of small and hard to see; rotating my iPad did not help. If you have the option, pick up the print version.
May 15, 2009
I mercifully forgot I read this book until I looked at Elizabeth's book list, or maybe I was just ashamed to admit to my ŷ friends that I actually completed it. If Peretti wants to cram his version of Christianity down our throats (evolution does not exist, etc.) using non-existent animals as a plot device, he should publish a disclaimer to that effect, in very large type, on the front cover. What a waste of time.
August 4, 2021
This was my very first Peretti book. Considering I’ve enjoyed cryptozoology since I was 11, I enjoyed this story immensely.
February 10, 2017
What did I just read?!? I picked this up in an op-shop about a year ago and have only just got around to reading it, so until recently I was innocent of the fact it is a CHRISTIAN BIGFOOT NOVEL.
Nowhere on the front or back cover is Peretti's God-bothering mentioned. Only when I read the review quotes on the first page did it begin to dawn on me that he is "the king of the faith-based fiction genre" and "the world's hottest writer of spiritual thrillers". (I had to LOL that they included the NYT's review, "Potboiling adventure is combined with a distinctly conservative theology.") And then in the acknowledgments, Peretti thanks the "director of the Center for Creation Studies at Liberty University". Massive warning klaxons were going off!!!
The basic plot here is that a young married couple head out on a wilderness retreat in a rugged corner of northwest Idaho with another married couple who are their best friends. The patronising aim is to bring wimpy, stuttering Beck out of her shell. And maybe to get in touch with God.
Instead, Beck gets abducted by a troop of Sasquatches, and learning to survive within their social structure brings her out of her shell, all right! Meanwhile her husband, a sheriff's deputy, and his friends, a disgraced (because he is a creationist) biology researcher and his CSI wife (who is also Native American), use their convenient skills to track down Beck. But other people are also being attacked� not by the Sasquatches (who are God's creations after all), but by a mutant human-chimp hybrid monster that is the real monster of the novel Monster!
And you know what else is monstrous? EVOLUTION. Because according to the logic of this novel, evolutionists are so intolerant of any evidence that their precious theory doesn't hold water that they will attempt to 'prove' it by force, through a cruel Frankensteinian program of genetic engineering, with the aim of � what? Who knows? Proving that humans and chimpanzees share 98 per cent of their DNA (a statistic that Peretti brings up frequently, only to mock it as a hollow dogma).
It is so annoying to me that this would have been a perfectly entertaining Michael Crichton-esque thriller without the tendentious Christianity. But Peretti is determined to argue not merely that evolutionary theory is incorrect, but also that its proponents are all cartoonish mad scientist villains who'll break all the laws of nature in order to ensure their research projects get the 'right results' to secure funding from Big Evolution (laughably represented here as "American Geographic magazine" and the "Evolution Channel").
According to this novel, evolutionary scientists are all glass-jawed tyrants who close ranks against virtuous creationist dissenters and crush their careers for merely suggesting that evolution might have some holes in it. This was hard to swallow, when the advancement of science is actually predicated on debate and disagreement, and many in the scientific community can easily reconcile their religious faith with their scientific practice.
It may be hard for dogmatic American Christians to accept, but it's possible to write villainous mad-scientist characters, and narrate conspiracies to cover up shady genetic engineering experiments funded by shadowy corporations, without hanging shit on evolutionary theory, which is a perfectly uncontroversial scientific consensus outside the insular circles of American religious fundamentalism.
Anyway. This gets two stars rather than one, because the story itself was fast-paced and told with some verve and urgency (if with few shocks or surprises). But if you're not already convinced by its conservative theology � which I never will be � it's mainly a curiosity from an extremely weird (but apparently quite profitable) literary subculture.
Nowhere on the front or back cover is Peretti's God-bothering mentioned. Only when I read the review quotes on the first page did it begin to dawn on me that he is "the king of the faith-based fiction genre" and "the world's hottest writer of spiritual thrillers". (I had to LOL that they included the NYT's review, "Potboiling adventure is combined with a distinctly conservative theology.") And then in the acknowledgments, Peretti thanks the "director of the Center for Creation Studies at Liberty University". Massive warning klaxons were going off!!!
The basic plot here is that a young married couple head out on a wilderness retreat in a rugged corner of northwest Idaho with another married couple who are their best friends. The patronising aim is to bring wimpy, stuttering Beck out of her shell. And maybe to get in touch with God.
Instead, Beck gets abducted by a troop of Sasquatches, and learning to survive within their social structure brings her out of her shell, all right! Meanwhile her husband, a sheriff's deputy, and his friends, a disgraced (because he is a creationist) biology researcher and his CSI wife (who is also Native American), use their convenient skills to track down Beck. But other people are also being attacked� not by the Sasquatches (who are God's creations after all), but by a mutant human-chimp hybrid monster that is the real monster of the novel Monster!
And you know what else is monstrous? EVOLUTION. Because according to the logic of this novel, evolutionists are so intolerant of any evidence that their precious theory doesn't hold water that they will attempt to 'prove' it by force, through a cruel Frankensteinian program of genetic engineering, with the aim of � what? Who knows? Proving that humans and chimpanzees share 98 per cent of their DNA (a statistic that Peretti brings up frequently, only to mock it as a hollow dogma).
It is so annoying to me that this would have been a perfectly entertaining Michael Crichton-esque thriller without the tendentious Christianity. But Peretti is determined to argue not merely that evolutionary theory is incorrect, but also that its proponents are all cartoonish mad scientist villains who'll break all the laws of nature in order to ensure their research projects get the 'right results' to secure funding from Big Evolution (laughably represented here as "American Geographic magazine" and the "Evolution Channel").
According to this novel, evolutionary scientists are all glass-jawed tyrants who close ranks against virtuous creationist dissenters and crush their careers for merely suggesting that evolution might have some holes in it. This was hard to swallow, when the advancement of science is actually predicated on debate and disagreement, and many in the scientific community can easily reconcile their religious faith with their scientific practice.
It may be hard for dogmatic American Christians to accept, but it's possible to write villainous mad-scientist characters, and narrate conspiracies to cover up shady genetic engineering experiments funded by shadowy corporations, without hanging shit on evolutionary theory, which is a perfectly uncontroversial scientific consensus outside the insular circles of American religious fundamentalism.
Anyway. This gets two stars rather than one, because the story itself was fast-paced and told with some verve and urgency (if with few shocks or surprises). But if you're not already convinced by its conservative theology � which I never will be � it's mainly a curiosity from an extremely weird (but apparently quite profitable) literary subculture.
December 5, 2009
I usually enjoy Frank Peretti's books, but found this one a bit different... took me awhile to "get into" it. But, towards the middle, and especially the end of the book, it is very hard to put down! The writing can be a bit gruesome at times, but is not too "over the top". Without wanting to spoil the plot, I appreciate the premise of the book: "Left to his own devices, man will always create a monster!" I tend to agree with that... except I would add: especially when man leaves God out of the equation.
As a side note, I had the pleasure of meeting Frank Peretti back in 1992 when I worked in a doctor's office in Seattle, WA. I actually typed up his medical certificate for flying! (although I have heard that he has given up flying now due to a medical condition) He autographed one of his books, and I like what he wrote in the front cover: "Love Truth!" I think those simple words give a pretty accurate description of his writings - although his stories are always very entertaining, he always brings out a message of God's Truth in his stories... which, as a Christian, I appreciate.
As a side note, I had the pleasure of meeting Frank Peretti back in 1992 when I worked in a doctor's office in Seattle, WA. I actually typed up his medical certificate for flying! (although I have heard that he has given up flying now due to a medical condition) He autographed one of his books, and I like what he wrote in the front cover: "Love Truth!" I think those simple words give a pretty accurate description of his writings - although his stories are always very entertaining, he always brings out a message of God's Truth in his stories... which, as a Christian, I appreciate.
April 9, 2019
It's not the religion thing, although I am am atheist I have no problem reading about Christian characters
What I do have a problem with is the way the women characters are infantilised. Also the final straw for me was one of the men talking about how he'd chosen his beautiful meek wife at youth group after having considered and dismissed every other woman in the group. It's just gross. As a woman, I can't imagine anything worse than trying to embrace a new social group and partake of an activity I am passionate about while some random bro in the group is staring at me like well none of the other women met my criteria maybe this one will.
Also, I wasn't into the early reveal of the monster.
Just not my thing.
What I do have a problem with is the way the women characters are infantilised. Also the final straw for me was one of the men talking about how he'd chosen his beautiful meek wife at youth group after having considered and dismissed every other woman in the group. It's just gross. As a woman, I can't imagine anything worse than trying to embrace a new social group and partake of an activity I am passionate about while some random bro in the group is staring at me like well none of the other women met my criteria maybe this one will.
Also, I wasn't into the early reveal of the monster.
Just not my thing.
June 17, 2012
In some ways, knowing what kind of book it is, I can forgive him getting the science really, really, egregiously, catastrophically wrong. He at least consulted an "expert" who had a vested interest in steering him badly. But he also gets universities wrong, hilariously so, and there's no reason not to have cleared that up with a little research.
January 29, 2009
Plot Recap:
I got very excited about reading this book when I read the letter to the reader that appears at the beginning and was written by the Publisher. The line that really got me read, “As Publisher, I’ve gone to great lengths to keep this novel’s key plot points under lock and key so that you—the reader—could savor every page.�
The Publisher goes on to say that there are many turns and layers to this story and he didn’t lie. However, I would have preferred to have more foreshadowing of some of them as I would have paid better attention to Dr. Michael Capella, or “Cap,� when he went off on what I perceived to be a sidetrack. I’ll go into that more in the meat of my opinion in the next section of this review.
I’ll warn you now, if you want to read the book the way the Publisher obviously wanted it read, then stop now and go read it. I’ve got a lot to go over and most of it centers on those key plot points the Publisher talks about so I will be revealing them in order to talk about them in the next section. Still here? All right, great. On with the show.
The book starts off making you believe it is about Rebecca Shelton’s abduction by a creature that (of course) only the reader truly believes is Bigfoot. Well, her husband, Reed, saw it happen so he’s with you on that bandwagon. And so are the couple’s best friends, Dr. Michael Capella and his wife, Sing.
The search for Rebecca, or “Beck,� begins the morning after the failed survival lessons/camping excursion that led to the screams in the night and the flight through the woods. Then Beck fell (as all good little protagonists must do) and got snatched by a wooly critter. Her Sheriff’s Deputy husband and his boss lead the search to find her, with some conveniently essential help from Sing and her mobile crime lab complete with GPS units. Not that I don’t believe the GPS tracking wouldn’t play a part in finding a lost person, I just found it rather convenient that the person that supplied that happened to be good friends with our main characters. And that her husband supplied the other main plot push.
After gathering some fecal and hair samples from the woods, Sing’s husband, “Cap�, heads off to the lab where he was apparently run off from for being a biologist that didn’t buy Darwin’s evolutionary theory. And he finds, of course, some crazy DNA in those samples.
Not to get too “point-by-point� as far as the plot goes, Cap finds out that his former colleagues are up to no good, trying to prove that humans evolved from chimpanzees by mutating chimpanzees with human DNA. He also finds out that their efforts aren’t going so well because—although everyone knows chimp DNA is 98% the same as human DNA—mutations don’t work for the benefit of the creature.
My favorite parts of the book are the scenes of Beck and her captors, which turn out to be a troop of four Sasquatches that includes a male, two females and an adolescent that’s about Beck’s size. Ah-ha! So, the female that snatched Beck doesn’t have an offspring, but the offspring present is Beck’s size? I think you’re supposed to infer that, but never fear, there are a some obvious revelations later on that tell it to the slow people.
We’re left thinking these Sasquatches that have Beck are the product of scientific tampering, but then they start running from this wailing creature that Beck and Reed heard on the night Beck disappeared. Ah-ha! So there’s the beast that science created...right?
And I’ll tell you what I really think:
Before I go into the individual subsections within this section, I want to take a moment to say that I really enjoyed the map in this book. It appears at the beginning of each chapter and highlights the locations where the activity in the previous chapter occurred. That way, you’re not constantly flipping to a map at the beginning of the book and trying to figure out where those events took place.
Scenery: There’s an interview in the back of the book that implies that the scenery is great and that Mr. Peretti was able to get the surroundings across with minimal description. I thought it was easy just because I’ve traipsed through a forest or two in my lifetime so I don’t know how much confidence I have in that statement. In all actuality, some of the descriptions contradicted my experiences, but I’m willing to admit that forests are built differently. Otherwise, I didn’t need to know too much about my surroundings because of the way the action happened. With some stories, describing every test tube on the table in a lab lends nothing to the story. So, I wouldn’t say the scenery was remarkable, but I would say that the author certainly knew where to stop, which is just as good a compliment in my book.
Characters: Beck stutters. It’s kind of a big deal, given that it stems from a lack of confidence. She’s also the only one that had depth in my mind. She was the only one that I could feel and run around with and really see. Everyone else acted in the stereotypical ways that writers have always written people in those positions. Sometimes I think the only reason anyone in the real world acts like that these days is because they read too damn much.
Plot: Er, maybe “moral� would be a better word. The basic message of this book is this: God is good and Darwin is evil. Don’t get offended, that’s the basic message. There’s more to it than that.
The only animal that goes so far as to actually kill anybody (including Beck’s surrogate mother’s child) is the mutation that science made. And it is only one in a line of foul creatures that Cap stumbles upon in his investigation. The Sasquatches that have Beck are God’s creatures and as such only strike out to protect themselves and their little family. And they’re running from that Darwinistic demon.
My problem with the plot was the major shift in the storyline. I went into it thinking this was a “lady got snatched by Bigfoot� story, which is not something I’d ever care to read. Then, all the sudden, Cap gets his DNA results and goes off investigating these mutation experiments. (Whoa! What’s this dude up to now? Where did that come from?)
That shift came too abruptly and did not go smoothly at all. I like layers and I like major twists, but I also like feeling like I’m reading the same book from one page to the next.
Despite my gripe there, I did enjoy the fact that we had Cap, a Christian scientist, working that side plot that turned out to be the plot. (Not that he was a “Christian Scientist� but that he was a scientist that just happened to be a Christian and that’s a cool concept. Damn Christian Scientists, mucking up my review. Not that I’m speaking against Christian Scientists. Uh, review. Yes. Back on track.)
Anyway, Cap’s character comes the closest to having a real life force, next to Beck. I think that contradiction in his beliefs is what does it, though. And as soon as I knew that his side plot was the actual meat of the story I enjoyed reading his sections and wished I had followed him more closely from the start.
Overall: The progression of Beck’s character is what kept me turning the pages. More than once I caught myself flipping ahead to count how far away her next scene was. I think the moral could have been handled oh so much better, as it felt a flat and cliché to me. But when reading outside of my box, it’s going to take something great to impress me.
In the end I am glad I read it because it gave me some great ideas for writing forest scenes and it made me realize that Bigfoot isn’t a bad main character. I thought that basing the Sasquatches� behavior on primates was predictable, but it’s also something that would be hard to get around.
The lingering questions: Where do Sasquatches fit in? Are they the missing link between man and ape that implies some of Darwin’s theories are correct? Or are they simply another ape, one of God’s creatures? I know the author implies the latter, but I like the freedom he gives me to attach some ambiguity to the message. And that is my favorite aspect of the book.
I got very excited about reading this book when I read the letter to the reader that appears at the beginning and was written by the Publisher. The line that really got me read, “As Publisher, I’ve gone to great lengths to keep this novel’s key plot points under lock and key so that you—the reader—could savor every page.�
The Publisher goes on to say that there are many turns and layers to this story and he didn’t lie. However, I would have preferred to have more foreshadowing of some of them as I would have paid better attention to Dr. Michael Capella, or “Cap,� when he went off on what I perceived to be a sidetrack. I’ll go into that more in the meat of my opinion in the next section of this review.
I’ll warn you now, if you want to read the book the way the Publisher obviously wanted it read, then stop now and go read it. I’ve got a lot to go over and most of it centers on those key plot points the Publisher talks about so I will be revealing them in order to talk about them in the next section. Still here? All right, great. On with the show.
The book starts off making you believe it is about Rebecca Shelton’s abduction by a creature that (of course) only the reader truly believes is Bigfoot. Well, her husband, Reed, saw it happen so he’s with you on that bandwagon. And so are the couple’s best friends, Dr. Michael Capella and his wife, Sing.
The search for Rebecca, or “Beck,� begins the morning after the failed survival lessons/camping excursion that led to the screams in the night and the flight through the woods. Then Beck fell (as all good little protagonists must do) and got snatched by a wooly critter. Her Sheriff’s Deputy husband and his boss lead the search to find her, with some conveniently essential help from Sing and her mobile crime lab complete with GPS units. Not that I don’t believe the GPS tracking wouldn’t play a part in finding a lost person, I just found it rather convenient that the person that supplied that happened to be good friends with our main characters. And that her husband supplied the other main plot push.
After gathering some fecal and hair samples from the woods, Sing’s husband, “Cap�, heads off to the lab where he was apparently run off from for being a biologist that didn’t buy Darwin’s evolutionary theory. And he finds, of course, some crazy DNA in those samples.
Not to get too “point-by-point� as far as the plot goes, Cap finds out that his former colleagues are up to no good, trying to prove that humans evolved from chimpanzees by mutating chimpanzees with human DNA. He also finds out that their efforts aren’t going so well because—although everyone knows chimp DNA is 98% the same as human DNA—mutations don’t work for the benefit of the creature.
My favorite parts of the book are the scenes of Beck and her captors, which turn out to be a troop of four Sasquatches that includes a male, two females and an adolescent that’s about Beck’s size. Ah-ha! So, the female that snatched Beck doesn’t have an offspring, but the offspring present is Beck’s size? I think you’re supposed to infer that, but never fear, there are a some obvious revelations later on that tell it to the slow people.
We’re left thinking these Sasquatches that have Beck are the product of scientific tampering, but then they start running from this wailing creature that Beck and Reed heard on the night Beck disappeared. Ah-ha! So there’s the beast that science created...right?
And I’ll tell you what I really think:
Before I go into the individual subsections within this section, I want to take a moment to say that I really enjoyed the map in this book. It appears at the beginning of each chapter and highlights the locations where the activity in the previous chapter occurred. That way, you’re not constantly flipping to a map at the beginning of the book and trying to figure out where those events took place.
Scenery: There’s an interview in the back of the book that implies that the scenery is great and that Mr. Peretti was able to get the surroundings across with minimal description. I thought it was easy just because I’ve traipsed through a forest or two in my lifetime so I don’t know how much confidence I have in that statement. In all actuality, some of the descriptions contradicted my experiences, but I’m willing to admit that forests are built differently. Otherwise, I didn’t need to know too much about my surroundings because of the way the action happened. With some stories, describing every test tube on the table in a lab lends nothing to the story. So, I wouldn’t say the scenery was remarkable, but I would say that the author certainly knew where to stop, which is just as good a compliment in my book.
Characters: Beck stutters. It’s kind of a big deal, given that it stems from a lack of confidence. She’s also the only one that had depth in my mind. She was the only one that I could feel and run around with and really see. Everyone else acted in the stereotypical ways that writers have always written people in those positions. Sometimes I think the only reason anyone in the real world acts like that these days is because they read too damn much.
Plot: Er, maybe “moral� would be a better word. The basic message of this book is this: God is good and Darwin is evil. Don’t get offended, that’s the basic message. There’s more to it than that.
The only animal that goes so far as to actually kill anybody (including Beck’s surrogate mother’s child) is the mutation that science made. And it is only one in a line of foul creatures that Cap stumbles upon in his investigation. The Sasquatches that have Beck are God’s creatures and as such only strike out to protect themselves and their little family. And they’re running from that Darwinistic demon.
My problem with the plot was the major shift in the storyline. I went into it thinking this was a “lady got snatched by Bigfoot� story, which is not something I’d ever care to read. Then, all the sudden, Cap gets his DNA results and goes off investigating these mutation experiments. (Whoa! What’s this dude up to now? Where did that come from?)
That shift came too abruptly and did not go smoothly at all. I like layers and I like major twists, but I also like feeling like I’m reading the same book from one page to the next.
Despite my gripe there, I did enjoy the fact that we had Cap, a Christian scientist, working that side plot that turned out to be the plot. (Not that he was a “Christian Scientist� but that he was a scientist that just happened to be a Christian and that’s a cool concept. Damn Christian Scientists, mucking up my review. Not that I’m speaking against Christian Scientists. Uh, review. Yes. Back on track.)
Anyway, Cap’s character comes the closest to having a real life force, next to Beck. I think that contradiction in his beliefs is what does it, though. And as soon as I knew that his side plot was the actual meat of the story I enjoyed reading his sections and wished I had followed him more closely from the start.
Overall: The progression of Beck’s character is what kept me turning the pages. More than once I caught myself flipping ahead to count how far away her next scene was. I think the moral could have been handled oh so much better, as it felt a flat and cliché to me. But when reading outside of my box, it’s going to take something great to impress me.
In the end I am glad I read it because it gave me some great ideas for writing forest scenes and it made me realize that Bigfoot isn’t a bad main character. I thought that basing the Sasquatches� behavior on primates was predictable, but it’s also something that would be hard to get around.
The lingering questions: Where do Sasquatches fit in? Are they the missing link between man and ape that implies some of Darwin’s theories are correct? Or are they simply another ape, one of God’s creatures? I know the author implies the latter, but I like the freedom he gives me to attach some ambiguity to the message. And that is my favorite aspect of the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 5, 2017
This book. Oh my goodness. Take camping trips, scary noises, huge "monsters", evil scientists, search parties, secret plots to murder people and wrap it all up in one book.....this is the book.
I mean, I was NOT expecting that ending AT ALL.
Before I go there, let me talk about the characters. Personally, I got them mixed up a lot in the beginning. I had no idea who was who, except the main two characters, which by the way, are AMAZING. Reed....is....so...sweet 💔 My heart is literally breaking for him the entire time.
Ok, and what is the author deal with PRETENDING TO KILL MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS AND RIPPING MY HEART OUT AND THEN DECIDING TO LET THEM LIVE AGAIN!?!?!??
Nope. I don't like that. But...it makes for a good story I guess. It's one of those books that makes you want to throw it against the wall or maybe even burn it because it's so frustrating but it's so amazingly good you can't stop reading it. Make sense?
It is very gory sometimes, and there's a lot of killing and descriptions of it, so I would definitely recommend for an older audience. This was my first Peretti book, and I was pleasantly surprised. Definitely a good read! *laughs maniacally*
I mean, I was NOT expecting that ending AT ALL.
Before I go there, let me talk about the characters. Personally, I got them mixed up a lot in the beginning. I had no idea who was who, except the main two characters, which by the way, are AMAZING. Reed....is....so...sweet 💔 My heart is literally breaking for him the entire time.
Ok, and what is the author deal with PRETENDING TO KILL MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS AND RIPPING MY HEART OUT AND THEN DECIDING TO LET THEM LIVE AGAIN!?!?!??
Nope. I don't like that. But...it makes for a good story I guess. It's one of those books that makes you want to throw it against the wall or maybe even burn it because it's so frustrating but it's so amazingly good you can't stop reading it. Make sense?
It is very gory sometimes, and there's a lot of killing and descriptions of it, so I would definitely recommend for an older audience. This was my first Peretti book, and I was pleasantly surprised. Definitely a good read! *laughs maniacally*
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 7, 2010
I like Peretti. A lot. Especially when he's dealing with spiritual warfare. He quite literally wrote the book on how the supernatural Christian thriller is done with his Darkness books. This one doesn't fall in the same vein. Not every book can be a writer's magnum opus. Sometimes he just writes an entertaining diversion. Nothing wrong with that. Peretti's frenetic pacing (I use that word as a compliment) is on display here, and the pages turn by themselves. The only problem is that the hook isn't intense enough to establish this as anything more than a beach/airplane/long car trip read. Don't expect this one to change your life. If you pared down Crichton's State of Fear to its core message and put a Christian spin on it and set it in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, you'd have approximately what Peretti's done here.
March 24, 2021
Forgot to update on this one (I did on my Instagram but not on here, ha). A thing you should know about me: I do not like thriller books. They do not thrill me, I am not thrilled xD. I don't know that I've ever actually finished one - so the fact that I read and FINISHED this one speaks wonders for the author. It wasn't a favorite, but it was still good. For those of you who /are/ thriller fans: you'll love Monster. As for me, I'm going to find another Peretti book. If he's good enough to keep me reading a thriller, I'm excited to try his other work!
January 12, 2015
Husband and Wife go on a hiking trip that she is less than thrilled about. When they hike up to the cabin they are supposed to meet their friend at, they find the place ransacked. Nervous that the place might have been burglarized, they camp out a ways from the cabin hoping their friend is just a little late. In the night they hear strange sounds and run from some kind of screaming animal. She gets abducted by these animals and soon finds out they are the closet thing to they mythical (or so she thought)creature, Bigfoot. She cannot escape this small family of creatures and the female almost protects her as if she were her own child. Later on she finds out that the lost child she is taking her for was killed by a creature similar to the Bigfoot that was scientifically created by a doctor experimenting on animal and human hybrid that went crazy and is running around killing everything and everyone in its path, and exposing the Bigfoot creatures out from hiding.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 9, 2016
I really liked how this book was written. Good characters fun story. However, half-way through it becomes this super weird Christian creationist novel attempting to debunk evolution (really poorly). The author has no true understanding of evolutionary science and so while I liked the story most of the Christian part was painfully horrible to read. It was also very forced. The evolutionary scientists in the story were basically evil and of course were wrong about evolution in the end except the author doesn't truly understand evolution so of course can't write about it. You can't cut off an animals grasping toes and expect the next generation to evolve to live on the ground... I mean.... What is that? Ugg. I wish this book would have left out all the weird religious/science experiment stuff. If it was just about big foot I could give it 5 stars (I can't believe I just wrote that)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 28, 2015
Wow, wow and double WOW's!!!! In retrospect this book was not that scary, but when reading it you will say otherwise. What I thoroughly enjoyed was the build-up; this book was made to be read in either one sitting (cause you can't put it down), or you spend several nights reading it. The plot, the ideas, just the imagination and the research that had to go into making this book draw you into it at a much deeper level than I have in any other Peretti fictional piece.
I was amazed and I think that you'll like it too. Just don't read at night (unless you think you can take it....) MWAHAHAHAHAH!!! Good luck, and have fun.......
..............
............
..........
.......
..
.
You'll need it. ;D
I was amazed and I think that you'll like it too. Just don't read at night (unless you think you can take it....) MWAHAHAHAHAH!!! Good luck, and have fun.......
..............
............
..........
.......
..
.
You'll need it. ;D
March 13, 2022
Oh my gosh, no. I read 100 pages, was not into the writing style or story/characters at all. I read the plot summary on Wikipedia to see if the book was worth finished and it is NOT! I highly recommend reading the plot summary…this book is batsh*t, or Sasquatchsh*t!
March 8, 2013
Up against the library wall, with no other viable audiobook choices, I selected this book. The writing is melodramatic and silly, but what made me like it was the reading by the author, who comes across as the narrator from the movie A Christmas Story on speed and tequila. When the poor stuttering heroine speaks, our reader makes it obvious that you are glad to not have been in the recording studio with him because the spit was certainly flying. When the Sasquatch groans, cries, sings, or screams, you get the full benefit of the volume. I recommend keeping the volume as low as you can in order to prepare for the sudden jarring screeches and blasts of theme music. The whole thing is so over-the-top that I developed a backward affection for the story in spite of its many deep and glaring flaws. If you can bear predictable plot turns (I can't call them twists) and an either ingrained or naive insensitivity to gender and heritage and some of the corniest dialogue since The Phantom Menace, then try this out. You'll laugh and groan with a smile on your face and, in the end, in spite of all odds, you'll probably have some fun with this one.
October 3, 2018
Made an account to write this. Needs to be recognized as Christian/creationist fiction. I, like another reviewer, wasted time and money on a story that I wasn't particularly impressed by to begin with, only to discover that it touts a very ridiculous strain of pseudoscience (and for those claiming that Peretti "has no agenda to push", I suggest you read the behind the scenes interview at the end of the novel. He very clearly states that he has an idea (didactical christian faith) he is trying to move further in Monster.) The writing is very competent, though the plot isn't particularly engaging due to a lack of fulfilling suspense, and I find a lot of the ideas and mindsets of the characters presented to be rather out of place in a freaking bigfoot novel, and this is before I discovered it was creationist. Peretti almost sinisterly injects it beneath the foundation of this story, and I believe that was his intent. That I picked this book up is my own fault, but don't let it be yours.
August 29, 2022
Normally Peretti's books have a spiritual component. This one was not. A couple, Reed and Beck, goes camping, only to find a 'monster' chasing them. Beck falls down a slope and is quickly scooped up by a 'monster'. Is she dead?
the story goes between the people trying to find Beck and Beck who is now 'living' with the monsters.
Of course, there is an evil scientist and when you read this book you will find out the rest of the story.
I enjoyed this book, had empathy for the 'monsters', and wonder how much damage humans create in the name of science.
the story goes between the people trying to find Beck and Beck who is now 'living' with the monsters.
Of course, there is an evil scientist and when you read this book you will find out the rest of the story.
I enjoyed this book, had empathy for the 'monsters', and wonder how much damage humans create in the name of science.
June 22, 2014
I clearly need to do a job of reading up on things before I try new authors. Stumbled onto this little gem which is basically anti-evolution propaganda, but also features Bigfoot...
Read
August 15, 2023DNF. Too many sexist jokes/comments and just not that great of writing.
August 23, 2021
meets
... Yeah. That sums it up pretty perfectly. I enjoyed this book very much.
~
I learned : Every character, even (and perhaps especially) the minor/side characters need their own life. What is their obsession? Love life? Work life? Hobby? Family? What do they talk about all the time?
Also trying to absorb Peretti's ability to create tension by proximity. XD
Another thing I learned, is to go all out in the climax. Don't hold anything back. I learned from Jurassic Park that you should define a limit to the violence you will do to your characters, and then tease the limit. In Jurassic Park it was the kids. I remember thinking that if the kid's died, I would pretty much hate the book. And as often as I thought they might, (spoiler alert!) the kid's didn't die.
Well, in this book, the limit was the four main characters. And more specifically, Beck. It's interesting to me that family (grandchildren, wife, etc.) seems to be a common limit in any kind of story like this. It's like a predetermined subconscious or cosmic boundary for storytelling. Something to keep in mind if you're writing an adventure thriller about a family/families.
~
I learned : Every character, even (and perhaps especially) the minor/side characters need their own life. What is their obsession? Love life? Work life? Hobby? Family? What do they talk about all the time?
Also trying to absorb Peretti's ability to create tension by proximity. XD
Another thing I learned, is to go all out in the climax. Don't hold anything back. I learned from Jurassic Park that you should define a limit to the violence you will do to your characters, and then tease the limit. In Jurassic Park it was the kids. I remember thinking that if the kid's died, I would pretty much hate the book. And as often as I thought they might, (spoiler alert!) the kid's didn't die.
Well, in this book, the limit was the four main characters. And more specifically, Beck. It's interesting to me that family (grandchildren, wife, etc.) seems to be a common limit in any kind of story like this. It's like a predetermined subconscious or cosmic boundary for storytelling. Something to keep in mind if you're writing an adventure thriller about a family/families.
August 31, 2022
3.75 stars
October 14, 2009
Beck is not thrilled to be taking this survival weekend with her husband Reed. She isn’t a big fan of the outdoors, but Reed thinks a wild camping adventure is just the thing to cure her of her nervous stutter. During their first night of camping, a horrifying wail pierced the night. Then something emerges in the darkness and chases them through the forest. The last thing Reed sees is a huge, hairy creature carrying his wife away into the night.
The next morning, a rescue party sets out to track the footprints and a hunting party sets out to bag a huge bear. Reed knows it wasn’t a bear. When a few more mysterious murders pop up, Reed calls a close friend to investigate. No one believes that a big foot monster carried off his wife, but Reed knows what he saw. And the more they discover, the more his theory is supported. But there may be another creature out there who has begun to hunt them.
I LOVED this book! It was such a great premise and handled so well. I loved how Peretti showed Beck’s point of view with her “captor.� I loved seeing her character grow and change just to survive. And then there was the whole mystery to figure out and the awesome nod to God’s amazing ability to create unique species. This is a great read. It’s creepy and scary, so if you don’t like that, steer clear. Otherwise, you must read Monster. It rocks!
The next morning, a rescue party sets out to track the footprints and a hunting party sets out to bag a huge bear. Reed knows it wasn’t a bear. When a few more mysterious murders pop up, Reed calls a close friend to investigate. No one believes that a big foot monster carried off his wife, but Reed knows what he saw. And the more they discover, the more his theory is supported. But there may be another creature out there who has begun to hunt them.
I LOVED this book! It was such a great premise and handled so well. I loved how Peretti showed Beck’s point of view with her “captor.� I loved seeing her character grow and change just to survive. And then there was the whole mystery to figure out and the awesome nod to God’s amazing ability to create unique species. This is a great read. It’s creepy and scary, so if you don’t like that, steer clear. Otherwise, you must read Monster. It rocks!
March 12, 2018
It's not worth writing a lengthy review of this book. It is one of the worst novels ever written. Aside from its insane creationist ranting, Peretti has no understanding of character or plot. He thinks that he is making some kind of profound statement against science in the book (he interviewed the Moonie Jonathan Wells to try to support this intention, but he clearly din't grasp any of Well's criticisms, misguided as they themselves were), but suffice to say, he is a man wholly unequal to the task. Peretti actually said in an interview on CBN that if evolution were true, then the X-men movies would be real.
April 7, 2020
I read this book shortly after 'House' which Peretti co-wrote with Ted Dekker (and I wound up hating with a burning passion...especially the ending). And I can still vividly recall how relieved I felt when I finished 'Monster,' thinking "OH. THANK. GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!! 'House' was not Frank's fault!!!!!! HERE is the Frank Peretti that I know and like!!" This remains my favorite book by him.
November 21, 2019
This book felt more weird and comical than creepy to me, and I didn’t enjoy it because of it. There is a decent chance this is due to the audiobook reader, who seemed to over exaggerate and energize everything. It made the book near childish, especially the early parts that are basically just about a woman forcibly adopted by big foot.
January 7, 2022
Great book
I have only read one other book by Frank Peretti and that was No More Bullies. This is my first fiction book of his. I loved it. Was a little difficult to keep up with the character but felt like like the characters came alive even the creatures. Ordered some more books by the author.
I have only read one other book by Frank Peretti and that was No More Bullies. This is my first fiction book of his. I loved it. Was a little difficult to keep up with the character but felt like like the characters came alive even the creatures. Ordered some more books by the author.
October 31, 2013
Christian thriller about MONSTERS! Another one of my favorites by F. Peretti! Reading this author is like watching a good movie! It's so easy to visulize every scene! And what a captivating page-turner this book is! Enough of mystery and suspense to keep me up half of a night!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,068 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.